SHANK (2010) REVIEW

Since the start of the new millennium, British cinema has had a sort of resurgence with either horror, comedy and slice of life films such as Fish Tank and Mike Leigh’s films, and then you have the urban thriller, that focuses mainly on black youths in and around London, the most obvious being Kidulthood. Now we get a new one every couple of months and this brings me to the film im about to review, the futuristic urban thriller SHANK.

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With slew of British 'youf' films, that do center mostly on Black teenagers living in poverty in the large tenement buildings, the so-called UK projects, and featuring copious amounts of UK grime music, The UK film industry has sort of created it's own modern Blaxploitation genre. Taking these Poor kids and using them to show how they live for the entertainment of others and kind of glorifying the urban violence such as gun and knife crime that is prominent within the areas that they live. Not just SHANK, but film such as the aforementioned KIDULTHOOD, it's sequel ADULTHOOD, Birmingham set gang film 1 DAY and even the recent Michael Caine film HARRY BROWN, have glorified this sort of violence, so when a film named after a homemade knife comes out, you start to wonder whether or not the police should be doing more to prevent violent crime instead of just shaking their heads and saying they're doing the best they can. Don't get me wrong but SHANK is a decent enough film but to name it after the homemade weapon is a little bit wrong.

Enough about my views on Knife crime onto the movie.

The plot of SHANK goes like this, it's 2015 and law and order are out of control, the lower class live in gang controlled slums and the upper class live in nice accommodation in the city. Gangs of youths are running wild on the streets and there's no adult supervision. One of the gangs is called The Paper Chasers who are trying to get enough money together to leave the slums. The police leave the slums alone ala District 13 and it's upto the youths to fend for them selves. After and altercation with a rival gang, leader of the Paper Chasers, named Rager, is knifed by the leader of the rival gang, named Tugz, infront of his 14 year old brother, named Junior. Junior persuades the remaining members of his gang, Kickz, Sweetboy and Craze, to help him track down Tugz so Junior can avange his brothers death. This is where the film changes from District 13 into a blatant rip off of The Warriors, as they travel across the slums encountering rival gangs such as the Somali's, The oldies and the Slaughter Girls. They enlist the help of three of the slaughter girls who have some scores to settle with Tugz too. They finaly track them down and there's a face off between The Paper Chasers, some dude called Whisper and Tugz and his gang. Eventually the plot is resolved and im guessing everyone lives happily ever after.

The Cast.

The cast is made up of, as the dvd case suggests, the cream of rising British talent, which amounts to the slutty girl who does too many drugs in SKINS, some Grime Artist known as Bashy and the Chav guy from Charlie Brookers Big Brother set Zombie show DEAD SET. They're all ok, nothing to really write home about, i was just waiting for Dappy from N-DUBZ to turn up and the whole film would have been amazing. But even though the the ones ive mentioned are ok, the film really belongs to first timer Kedar Williams-Sterling as Junior, he is amazing in the role and for his first film he shows a range of emotions. There are some recognizable faces that pop up to including Robbie Gee (Snatch) Terry Stone (Rollin' With The Nines) and the only black man capable of playing James Bond, Colin Salmon (AVP, Sky 1's StrikeBack).

The Script and the story borrows heavily from far superior films such as District 13 and The Warriors, throws in a bit of Kidulthood and some Eastenders and mixes it in a blender until it makes something that can be sold to a producer. The dialogue at times can be a little difficult to understand due to the strong use of Jafayken, as some of the time it's indecipherable. But it still manages to run to 90 minutes.

The Direction.
Director Mo Ali has done a decent job, his first feature film and it hasn't fallen apart, but the problem with his direction is that he seems to have seen one-too-many Grime Music Videos and this is the problem with the look of the film, sure it's well lit but it just looks like a music video stretched to 90 mins. The Look of decaying london is a bit crap to be honest, it looks as though they've just chucked a load of rubbish onto the floor to make it look like the downfall of society. Children of Men did it so much better, but i guess that film had double the budget of SHANK.

My Verdict
Even though i've trashed the film, i still found it strangely enjoyable, it had an interesting idea and that's usually a plus but it wasn't an original idea. Im just a bit sick of all these urban Gangsta Drama and think that they've outstayed they're welcome, with the exception of Harry Brown, which was outstanding, and the need to use the truly appalling grime music which is just rap with Drum and Base beats done by rappers or MC's who can't actually rap or MC is baffling to me, what ever happened to the rock soundtrack or the orchestral soundtrack. Anyways, if you rent this then don't expect to much, it's not the best film ever made but it's certainly not the worst, i wouldn't recommend buying it though, save your money and buy a cat or something...

FILM: 5/10